this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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If you believe, for a particular issue, that people should work together to create something that anyone can use for free, then for that particular issue you do have a socialist ideology. That's the definition of a socialist policy, other examples of this are public education, public health care, or Universal Basic Income. You might disagree with healthcare being public, but agree that education should be, people are not entirely socialist or capitalist, each issue can have a different answer.
People, especially those in the US and Brazil, need to stop thinking communism/socialism are bad terms and look at them for what they really are and analyse the specific issue at hand.
Socialist policies are popular in polling. But as soon as they get called out as socialist, people shut down and revert to their mass produced programming. Capitalism good! Socialism Bad!
Just some leftover trauma from the Red Scare days, I guess.
Socialism has to to with collective ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, not cost to the consumer. Goods and services may typically be free at the time of use (funded by taxes ahead of time) but that does NOT mean free as in without cost.
Again, like most of the other people in this thread, you're confusing free as in freedom (software movement), and free as in without cost.
I agree that socialism is not the scary term that staunch capitalists seem to believe that it is. However, perpetuating misunderstandings about what socialism means will not help find a healthy balance.
Don't we all collectively own the Linux kernel for all practical purposes, for example? Any of us can just check it out and do with it whatever we want (within the limits of the GPL).
I'm most definitely not confusing those terms since my native language uses different words for each. Read my other reply, I use the terms free and libre when I think there's need for clarification. Since socialist policies revolve around collective ownership and public distribution there's no meaning to saying they are libre, only free as in free beer makes any sense in this context.